A/N- I've decided on an update schedule- I'm going to be uploading roughly a 1,000+ word chapter every two days! We'll see how well I stick to it, but I've got some buffer already written. Thank you so much for reading, and as always, love you all.


It was in the pre-dawn twilight that Uzumaki Kaito made his way to a small weapons shop in town, chewing mint leaves. A few early birds potter to and fro, and he brushes past them with little of note. It's not technically open yet, he doesn't think, but there is a man behind the counter fiddling with the register, and the door opens when he pushes at it. Bells tinkle and a small child comes hurrying up to him. Tenten.

"Hello mister Shinobi-san!" she bubbles, gazing up at him. How old was she- eight? She had been his senior, once. Then his subordinate. Then dead. Red starts to spread across her small blue tunic, to trickle down from the corner of her mouth and from her hairline. Kaito keeps himself very carefully neutral.

"Ah, hello," he replies, gently guiding her away from his knees. His hand on her weeping crimson shoulder comes off clean. It's not real, it's not real. He is fine. He closes his eyes, takes a breath. When he opens them, the inquisitive little panda child is peering up at him and notable not covered in gore.

She tugs on his pant leg. "Can I help you mister? What are you looking for? I like the senbon and the kunai and the trench knives and the shuriken and the daggers, and and and" she hurtles in one breath. Kaito smiles indulgently.

"Dangerous," is all he manages to say. He thinks, remembers her spark, her flare, her passions. Her determination to prove that she, was more than her gender. "From that… I think, you must be too."

She positively beams at him. "Yes! I'm going to grow up to be like Tsunade! She's stronger than everyone!" He thinks about Granny, about his object of many fantasies, resting upon her head. He remembers good times, he remembers days, good days, where she snuck children candy and pretended very hard to be a cold, heartless ice queen.

"If you work hard, you could become even stronger than her," he whispers, conspiratorially. The small child looks aghast at the concept, as if she had not even conceived the possibility, then rushes off to her father. Kaito, amused, half-listening to the high-pitched, breathless yammering of an overexcited child as he continues to browse the racks of weapons. He spies a tanto with a hilt wrapped in crimson cloth, a dark blade. It reminds him of a sword he'd bought from this very store in a whole other world. He picks it up, pulls it across his palm to see beads of blood well almost immediately in the sliver of split skin. He runs his tongue over the small wound, copper-sweet, and watches as it coagulates. He smiles, swinging the blade gently in his hand, feeling out the balance. It's good, gorgeous, better than most blades and definitely better than the kunai he's been using. He checks the price and winces. He sets it down, and tries not to look for good.

Tenten's father, a man he never really got to know, ambles over. "Can I help you find something? I know my daughter can be a little… excitable, I hope she didn't bother you at all."

"Ahhh, yes. I do… need a little help." He admits. Then thinks. "She is a... lovely girl. She will be a strong kunoichi one day."

"Ahh, one day," the man agrees. "For now, she's just a little girl with a bit too much interest in sharp objects. I'm enrolling her in the academy this year, I hope they can tame her a little." Kaito looks at the untamed little one mentioned, currently battling the air with a small foil. He smiles.

"Forgive me, let me introduce myself. I'm Ryouta, and that little beast is Tenten. You've really charmed her, you know. So anyhow, what are you looking for, ah-" he trails off.

It takes a moment for the expected response to process. "Kaito. Uzumaki. Ah, Uzumaki Kaito, sorry." He shoves a hand in the back of his hair, tugs. It's painful to be so utterly incompetent at speech. Small children don't judge stilted sentences, don't think too hard about who he is and why he's there. "I'm looking for a blade. I'm not… picky. I don't have much money for it right now, so nothing too nice. I'll be able to..." he flounders, fishing for the right word, "replace. Replace it soon."

Ryouta nods, seeming to ignore Kaito's complete ineptitude. "I see, I see. Well, there are a few options, depending on what you need it for. I noticed you liked that tanto- do you have a preference of sword style?"

Naruto had known all about swords, learnt to wield them in lieu of fighting just with fists. Kaito shrugged.

"We can stick with tantos, then," Ryouta decides. He gesture to a rack to their left. "These ones aren't the highest quality, but there are a lot of ninja who prefer them. They're easy enough to keep sharp and very light- it helps those who rely mostly on speed. They break fairly easily though, using them to block heavy blows isn't always the best idea." Another rack over, he continues.

"These are sturdier, but heavy and once they're dull, they're dull. There are more swords around that you can take a look at, but these are the lowest priced tantos for proper combat. Take a look." He then leaves Kaito alone without waiting for a dismissal on the customer's part- thankfully- to wrestle a large, heavy blade out of his young hellion's hands. Kaito silently wishes him good luck.

He struggles for a moment- he generally relied on speed but he didn't need it for long and did need to hack apart a body. He settles on the first rack and whittles his choices down to two fairly quickly, between one with a slightly longer blade and another with a more comfortable handle. He chooses the cheaper one- the latter, and brings it up to the counter to pay. He hands over the necessary ryo and remembers one more thing.

"Where can I buy paper?" He blurts.

Ryouta looks up. "Hm?"

"I prefer to make my own tags. Where could I get some blank ones?" He elaborates. The man begins to answer but Tenten, who had moved on to embedding shuriken into the floor behind the counter pipes up.

"Oh! Oh!" She starts dashing around at high speed, and before Ryouta could properly respond, she's next to Kaito with a small stack of papers in her hands.

"I was trying to make my own tags so I got my friend Kita to give me some! But then Daddy got mad because he said I would kill everyone and my dog! I don't wanna kill my dog!" Ryouta shrugged helplessly. Kaito related. He took a moment to formulate a proper response.

"Thank you, Ten-chan. It's very nice of you to give me these." He attempts to to placate. "One day, I can teach a little about them. So you don't blow up your dog." The Tenten of his time had already known explosive sealing, he wondered where she'd gotten it from. He wondered how many times she'd singed off her own eyebrows.

The girl's eyes widened, and she tried to tackle him into a hug. What she'd embraced was a cylindrical clear display case, and she looks up in confusion to see a swinging door with tinkling bells.